


enemy action

by taywen



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Cockblocking, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Low Chaos Ending, Royal Spymaster!Daud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7934836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taywen/pseuds/taywen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Emily walking in on them once was an accident. Doing so twice was a coincidence, but for it to happen three times— that was a pattern. A pattern that Daud didn’t appreciate.</i>
</p><p>Or, five times Emily cockblocked Daud and Corvo (but mostly Daud), and one time Corvo confronted her about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	enemy action

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reina_randwulf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reina_randwulf/gifts).



> reina asked for Corvo/Spymaster!Daud and Emily cockblocking them. this grew into a larger fic than I expected but eh here we are! please enjoy <3
> 
> title is from Ian Fleming's _Goldfinger_ : "Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action."

(1)

It felt like they’d been dancing around it for months, but maybe it was just Daud projecting his own emotions onto Corvo. Imagining lingering stares when Corvo was simply glaring at him with well-deserved loathing, if not outright hatred, or looking too far into a hand extended to help him up after a spar.

Corvo had been burned twice by betrayal; he was probably only watching Daud to ensure that he wouldn’t miss it coming a third time, and developing a tentative rapport between them to secure his loyalty.

Daud had said he’d serve the Empress for as long as she’d have him, but words were cheap. An assassin, no matter how reformed, was far from trustworthy, particularly one who’d murdered an Empress.

At the desk nearby, Corvo frowned down at the stack of correspondence before him.

“More letters from your many admirers?” Daud drawled. He might have been jealous, if he thought he had any claim on Corvo’s attention or if those admirers had any hope of gaining it. (He still was, a little, but he’d never let it show, much less admit it.)

“Unfortunately.” Corvo’s mouth twisted as he worked on the latest polite refusal.

They shared an office, had done so since Daud’s inception as Spymaster. Corvo hadn’t said as much, but Daud knew it was so the Royal Protector could oversee Daud’s work. Assassins weren’t trustworthy. In the year and a half since Emily had taken the throne, Corvo had eased off his suspicion of Daud, though he continued to share the space with him.

“You might as well take up with one of them,” Daud remarked. His own work was done for the day, thanks to the help of certain senior whalers, though Corvo didn't need to know that. Explaining that he stuck around in their office simply for the pleasure of Corvo's company couldn't be anything but excruciating. “Wouldn’t it be— what was your reason for cordially rejecting them rather than telling them to take a fucking hike? ‘Maintaining good relations with the upper echelons of Dunwall society’, that was it.”

Corvo fixed him with such a look then that Daud thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that he had to _know_ about Daud’s ridiculous attraction to him.

“Right. The lucky noble would be so thrilled. They’d just expect my time and attention in exchange for their support. And then there’s the reactions of the others that I’ll have snubbed by not accepting their advances to consider.”

“So they’ll be offended. Like that’s never happened before.” Daud rolled his eyes. “But with the plague cured and the Abbey leashed, the throne is as secure as you could hope for. The people love their Empress. Emily could weather any turmoil from jilted suitors, and you wouldn’t have to deal with— that.” He gestured pointedly at the stack of letters.

“Tempting, but I already have my eye on someone else.” Corvo met his stare evenly for several seconds, then returned to his letter, leaving Daud to overthink that loaded statement in a silence broken only by the scratching of Corvo’s pen.

The problem was that Corvo was a fundamentally good man. If there was an alternative to bloodshed, he took it, no matter how much more difficult it might be. He made it look like the easiest thing in the world. He replied to each letter, no matter how blatantly inappropriate, with a gently-worded refusal. By the Void, he’d even spared Daud’s worthless life.

So Daud nursed the faint, likely-misguided hope that Corvo might feel something similar to what Daud felt for him. Admiration and respect and simple physical attraction that had deepened into something _more_. Something that Daud didn’t want to put into words, not even within the confines of his own mind. It was a foolish hope. Daud was under no illusions as to his respectability or worthiness of admiration; he wasn’t conventionally appealing by any stretch of the imagination either.

“What does that _mean_ ,” Daud finally burst out. He hated uncertainty and mysteries, and while the pieces before him seemed to fit into some recognizable shape, they still didn’t make _sense_.

“I have to finish this letter,” Corvo said, distracted, not even bothering to look up. “We don’t all have a small army to help with paperwork.”

Daud froze.

Corvo set the letter aside an indeterminate amount of time later - seconds? minutes? Daud didn’t know - and looked at Daud, eyebrow raised. “That’s it? No sarcastic comeback? ‘You wouldn’t want their help answering love letters, Attano.’ Nothing?”

“I don’t sound anything like that.” It was the first thing that came to Daud’s mind, and he basically blurted it out the second he saw Corvo rise from his desk.

“Not your best retort,” Corvo said, and there was a _smile_ lurking at the corners of his mouth as he came to a halt before Daud’s desk, “but I’ll let it slide this time.”

“ _Why_ ,” Daud ground out. They both knew he wasn’t referring to Corvo’s most recent comment.

Corvo’s expression sobered, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “You watch me constantly. You linger in our office even after your own work is finished— so you can stay and talk with me, I assume. There could be several reasons for this. You could be plotting against the throne, and wanting to ensure that I don’t catch wind of it.”

“Of course not—!” Daud spat, rising out of his seat indignantly.

“Or,” Corvo continued calmly, unfazed by his outburst, “you could simply enjoy my company.”

That wasn’t true, at least not entirely. “Are those my only choices?”

“Well, there is another explanation.” For the first time, Corvo looked uncertain, his gaze dropping. The tip of his index finger tapped nervously against his arm. The motion stopped when Corvo realized Daud had seen it, and he glanced back at Daud. “I’m hoping for the third option, myself.”

Daud sucked in a breath; the room seemed unbearably close, suddenly, but impossibly large at the same time. The space between himself and Corvo seemed impossible to bridge. What if he was misreading Corvo? Interpreting his words and expressions imprecisely, coloured by his own yearning?

But Corvo had taken the first step, and Daud could only do the same. Words were too— fraught. The thought of voicing how he felt aloud was too much for him to contemplate. Action had always been his choice.

Corvo tensed when Daud fisted a hand in his coat, tugging him across the space between them. He stopped with a few milimetres between them, loosening his grip so Corvo could pull back if he wanted to. He didn’t. His eyelids slipped down halfway, concealing the emotion that passed through them, but Daud felt the shaky exhale that escaped him against his cheek.

“Kiss me already, you insufferable jackass,” Corvo murmured, but there was no bite to the insult, none of the barely-leashed vitriol that had characterized the beginning of their professional relationship, and so Daud did.

Impossible to say how long they stood there, bent awkwardly together above Daud’s desk. It should have been embarrassing or painful, but any protest from his body about the unnatural position was ignored; the press of Corvo’s lip, the passes of his tongue, the increasingly-confident brush of his hands, were too important.

The door beginning to open, noticed just out of the corner of his eye, brought Daud back to his senses. He pushed Corvo back, his hands untangling from Corvo’s hair and releasing his coat. He licked his lips, absently smoothing down the line of his own coat as he took in the sight Corvo made.

His lips were red, cheeks flushed faintly, pupils blown wide, hair a disaster. Corvo ran one shaking hand through it quickly, but it did little to help. Daud probably looked no better.

“Were you arguing again?” Emily stood just inside the threshold, one hand still curled around the doorknob. There was a slight furrow in her brow as she looked between them.

“No,” Corvo said, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat, the colour on his face deepening.

Emily narrowed her eyes, but let it pass unremarked. “I want a bedtime story, Corvo.”

Corvo blinked in surprise. Daud bit back his knee-jerk reaction to question whether she still needed such a thing at her age. He had no right to ask it, and if something as simple as that gave her comfort, who was he to deny her?

“Of course, Emily. I’ll be right there.” He glanced back at Daud, his gaze just as heated as before. “We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow, Daud.”

Daud muttered something in agreement, vaguely aware of Emily’s harsh scrutiny. It just didn’t seem important when Corvo was looking at him like he wanted to devour him.

“Tomorrow,” Corvo repeated, and followed Emily out of their office.

* * *

(2)

It was difficult to keep his hands off Corvo after that. More than a few of the whalers made comments about it, some bolder than others depending on their nature, but none of them ever actually walked in on him and Corvo doing anything. There weren’t any further close calls like the first time they’d kissed, either.

Daud was thankful for that. He’d never hear the end of it. But it made them complacent, and more than a little foolish.

Corvo had him backed up against a window in the hall beyond Emily’s bedroom now, which Daud probably should have protested, but Corvo was pretty damn persuasive when he wanted to be. The floor-length curtains concealed them from the inside of the Tower, and it was night outside, so no one looking up at their window should have been able to see them.

“You’ll just have to be quiet,” Corvo had said, and then applied himself to making Daud utter increasingly loud and obscene noises, kissing and nipping at his mouth as his hands roamed freely across Daud’s body. They’d been doing this for a little over a week and already Corvo knew exactly where to touch Daud to make him gasp and moan.

Daud groaned in protest when Corvo pulled back; Corvo just grinned in response, a flash of teeth in the semi-darkness.

“If you can’t keep silent, maybe you should put your mouth to better use,” Corvo said.

Objectively, it was a terrible line. Daud should have been embarrassed to hear the words come out of Corvo’s mouth. Instead, all he could focus on was how much he wanted Corvo’s cock in his mouth, immediately.

A distant part of him was gratified at the way Corvo’s eyes widened when he dropped to his knees, and the shaky inhale that he heard as he opened Corvo’s trousers to get at his cock.

Corvo was wet at the tip; he exhaled harshly as Daud paused to lap up the pre-come beading there. It only seemed fair to return the favour for what Corvo had just put Daud through, so he curled a hand around the base of Corvo’s cock and started to lick teasingly at him. A muffled moan escaped him when Daud let the barest hint of teeth scrape up his length, his hips jolting forward.

It wasn’t anything close to the kind of sounds Daud wanted to coax out of him, but he wanted his mouth stretched around Corvo’s cock, deep enough that he struggled to breathe, even more urgently. So he figured that soft moan would have to do. Daud fit his lips over the head, tonguing briefly at the slit before taking Corvo more deeply into his mouth.

“Fuck,” Corvo said shakily, his hand fisted tight in Daud’s hair, as Daud swallowed him down. “Your mouth, Daud—”

Daud groaned, the sound muffled by Corvo’s cock. Corvo rocked forward again, hitting the back of Daud’s throat. It was too soon but Daud wanted it anyway, ignoring Corvo’s stammered apology and pressing forward determinedly.

“Corvo?”

The word was like a bucket of cold water thrown over the two of them. They froze. Their ragged breathing seemed impossibly loud in the quiet, wide eyes staring at each other in a panic.

Corvo tugged at Daud’s hair; perversely, it made his cock throb in his trousers. Daud ignored it and pulled off, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. Corvo fumbled at the fastenings of his trousers as bare feet padded audibly across the marble floor towards their hiding place.

Daud stood and adjusted himself, then tried to smooth his hair down. Looking around wildly for an escape while he did so proved futile. The windows didn’t open on this floor; Corvo had deemed it a security risk and had them all replaced in the early months of Emily’s reign. At the time, Daud had agreed with the measure, but now it seemed like a monumental mistake second in magnitude only to Daud’s previous career.

Corvo twitched the curtain aside just enough to slip through without revealing that Daud was also behind it.

“Emily. What are you doing awake at this hour?” Corvo spoke in a decent approximation of his normal self; it probably helped that he hadn’t been the one getting his throat fucked.

Daud bit down on his lip, hard. He could still taste Corvo in his mouth, and while Emily’s interruption had put a damper on things, he was still hard. He needed to get out of there.

“I thought I heard you talking.” She didn’t sound remotely tired. “Why were you hiding—?”

“I wanted to look at the stars,” Corvo said. “The lights shone on the window and I couldn’t see the sky.”

“Oh.” Emily’s voice came closer. “Are the stars pretty tonight?”

Daud stared at the curtain in horror, his left hand curling in anticipation of stopping time. If Emily took a step closer—

“No,” Corvo said quickly, too loud. “It’s— cloudy. I was muttering to myself about it. Gristol’s weather is intolerable.”

Silence for a few seconds. Daud’s heart beat loudly in his ears. Had he ever felt so on edge sneaking towards a target? He surely had, but he couldn’t recall any particular occasion to mind now.

“You Serkonans and your obsession with the sun,” Emily said, but lightly. As if this were a well-worn conversation between them. “Don’t stay up too late, OK Corvo?”

“I believe that’s my line,” Corvo said, dry. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Emily.”

“Night.” Emily’s footsteps traced back down the hall.

Corvo whipped the curtain back a few seconds later, looking worn out. “That can’t happen again.”

Daud couldn’t say what expression his face showed then, but Corvo’s eyes widened immediately.

“I didn’t mean— We can’t almost get caught again, Daud.”

“Oh. Of course.” Daud’s voice came out more roughly than usual. He cleared his throat. “Do you still want to—? Or just go to bed?”

Corvo stifled a yawn. “I just want to sleep. With you,” he clarified. It wasn’t something they’d done yet; if they weren’t going to fuck, they slept in their separate quarters.

“Right. That’s— acceptable. More than acceptable.” Daud repressed the urge to smile with difficulty, following Corvo back to his quarters without complaint.

* * *

(3)

They were more discreet after that, limiting themselves to lingering touches in public or brief kisses and nothing further in thoroughly deserted areas. It was only in the privacy of Corvo or Daud’s quarters that they allowed themselves to lose track of time and their surroundings.

A knock at Corvo's door woke Daud in the early hours of the morning a few weeks after the last near-miss. Not obscenely early, not even earlier than he usually rose, but he and Corvo had been up late the night before.

His body ached in a pleasantly sore way as he lifted his head to glare at the door through one cracked-open eye. “Go away,” he muttered, slumping back onto the pillow.

The knock came again, a bit louder and more insistent this time. Beside Daud, Corvo stirred, blinking sleepily at him, and he had just begun to smile in a way that definitely did not do _things_ to Daud when—

“Corvo?” came Emily’s voice through the door. “Are you still asleep? I’m coming in.”

Blank panic replaced the smile and Corvo shoved Daud out of the bed. He hit the floor with a grunt, grateful for the thick rug that covered most of Corvo’s room, and rolled under the bed in a moment of unthinking alarm.

The bed’s frame was raised high enough to allow someone of Daud’s bulk to fit beneath it, if uncomfortably. Dust tickled his nose, and Daud clamped his mouth shut around the temptation to sneeze. He watched with baited breath as the door opened to admit the Empress of the Isles, already dressed and ready for the day, from what he could see of her. The sound of her footsteps was muffled by the rug as she walked into the room.

“Good morning, Corvo!”

Daud glared up at the mattress as Corvo returned the greeting in a sleep-roughened voice, disgruntled at the latest interruption and more than a little resentful that Corvo had just— shoved him out of the bed. Though he’d done it instinctively than out of any desire to offend Daud, or so it had seemed; they’d both sprung apart as if burned, or tried to play their closeness off as nothing when Emily had walked in on them previously.

Emily walking in on them once was an accident. Doing so twice was a coincidence, but for it to happen three times— that was a pattern. A pattern that Daud didn’t appreciate.

Emily didn’t seem inclined to leave, though, settling into one of the armchairs Corvo had before the fireplace and starting up a conversation about— something or other. Taxes, of all things? Slipping away unnoticed was looking more and more attractive.

Daud could stop time and use the stolen seconds to slip away, but Corvo disapproved of using their abilities when it wasn’t necessary. While Daud agreed with the sentiment, they sometimes clashed on the exact definition of necessity; somehow, Daud doubted that it applied here.

Daud gritted his teeth and settled in to wait. He reminded himself that Emily didn’t know she was tormenting him; it helped to soothe his temper, barely.

Corvo apologized when Emily finally left, mouthing the words into Daud’s skin, and then they fucked again— after Daud made Corvo lock the door. While they were both late for their morning duties, and Daud was sore enough for Corvo to watch him a strange mixture of pride and amusement, he couldn’t summon his earlier anger at all.

* * *

(4 & 5)

This was a bad idea. There were a number of reasons that this was a _terrible_ idea, but none of them came to mind and whenever Daud tried (admittedly not very hard) to grasp them, Corvo distracted him with a hint of teeth or the slick press of his tongue.

The room was seldom-used, in any case. Clean enough, from the brief glance Daud had gotten of it when Corvo shoved him through the door and kicked it shut behind them, so there was little chance of a servant walking in to dust or something equally inconvenient.

Corvo’s lips dragged across his skin, sending Daud’s thoughts scattering again as his teeth fastened briefly on the lobe of Daud’s ear. “You’re thinking too hard.”

Daud grinned against Corvo’s neck, nipping lightly at the skin there. The temptation to suck a bruise was strong, and it would probably be hidden by Corvo’s ridiculous collar, but Corvo was picky about marks.

“Gonna do something about it?”

Corvo gave a low growl that sent another flare of arousal through him and pressed him back against the wall, insinuating a thigh between Daud’s own. He rocked against Corvo’s leg with a groan.

Daud was just reaching with intent for the fastenings of Corvo’s trousers, wanting to make the most of this stolen moment between meetings and duties, when he heard the telltale creaking of the doorknob.

He stepped aside hastily, his hands dropped to his sides, their lips unsealing with a slick sound that did little to kill his arousal. The soft noise of protest Corvo uttered, and the way he swayed towards Daud in the sudden space between them, didn’t help either.

“There you are,” Emily said, smiling. She gazed around the room with a slightly furrowed brow. “Why are you in here, anyway? This office hasn’t been used since we reorganized the floor plan of the Tower.”

Daud and Corvo exchanged glances, Daud trying to convey that Corvo should handle any deception and Corvo trying to convey— Daud had no idea, watching the minute shifts in his facial expressions with something like adoration.

Not helpful. Daud cleared his throat and looked back at Emily. “I got lost,” he said, a blatant and pathetic lie.

Emily tilted her head. “And Corvo— came looking for you?”

When Daud glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, Corvo didn’t look ready to jump into the conversation and rescue him. He was on his own.

“I wanted to show him a report at my office, but I got turned around.”

Emily nodded slowly, not looking entirely convinced. “I guess that happens when you get old.”

Daud bit back his instinctive retort; he got enough ribbing about his age from those ingrates he called subordinates.

“Daud’s around the same age as me, Emily,” Corvo said, his voice rougher than usual from their earlier activities. Daud tried to think of unarousing things; creeping through Dunwall’s underbelly, dealing with recalcitrant nobles (in his current position and when he had still been an assassin)—

“I guess,” Emily said, but doubtfully. “Anyway, what’s this report about?”

“Uh,” Daud said.

“It must be important if you couldn’t wait ‘til tonight’s briefing.” She was the picture of innocence, but Daud couldn’t shake the feeling that she was toying with him.

“I just thought it might be related. To—” Daud cast around for what had been discussed in the daily meeting between Emily and her advisors, “—the Carmines. Since they were mentioned this morning. But I’m still unsure.”

“All right. Well, if that changes, let us know tonight,” Emily said. “I like Lord Carmine’s daughter, I think we could be friends.”

“I will, Your Majesty.”

“Did you need anything, Emily?” Corvo asked. “Why were you looking for me?”

“I could’ve been looking for Daud,” Emily said.

Daud stifled his instinctive snort, barely. Doubtful. He knew she couldn’t stand him, and he didn’t blame her; some days he could barely stand himself.

“Were you?” Corvo’s patience for Emily was nearly endless, so long as indulging her didn’t mean shirking too many lessons or imperial duties.

“Well, no. But I could’ve been.” Emily shrugged, glancing only briefly in Daud’s direction before refocusing on Corvo. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t work through dinner again. Since you’re not in your office, that won’t be a problem, right—?”

“I’ll be there, Your Majesty.” Corvo’s tone was practically brimming with grave courtesy, affecting the distinctive lilt of the nobility. Daud was surprised he hadn’t overdone it entirely and dipped into a facetious bow as well.

“Good. I’ll see you then.” Emily smiled at him, but it didn’t appear quite genuine. Her smiles often didn’t. The expression grew even more forced when she looked at Daud once more. “Spymaster.” She nodded to him; when he dipped into a shallow bow, she took her leave.

“All right,” Daud said, once the door had closed behind her, “do you think the Empress— knows?”

“About us?” Corvo looked at him blankly.

Daud nodded.

“Of course she does. How many times has she caught us in the middle of— intimate moments?”

“Four times,” Daud said immediately, because he was keeping count.

Corvo looked briefly exasperated. “I’ll take your word for it. But she already knew, anyway. I told her before—” he paused, suddenly engrossed in looking everywhere _but_ at Daud.

“Before what?” It was Daud’s turn for blank confusion.

Corvo muttered something, barely audible and nearly incoherent, but Daud got the gist of it anyway: He’d told Emily that he was interested in Daud long before he’d made a move.

Which implied that Corvo had wanted him for longer than Daud had thought. He still wondered, sometimes, if Corvo was just indulging him, using Daud’s attraction to bind him more closely to the throne. Not seriously, and not often, but he couldn’t help his uncertainty.

Corvo’s confession, grudgingly given, went a long way to putting those concerns to ease.

Daud tugged Corvo close again, ignoring the stiffness of his shoulders and appreciating the redness suffusing his face as he resolutely avoided Daud’s stare.

“It’s the same for me,” Daud said, vaguely aware that his smile wasn’t remotely dignified. The Knife of Dunwall wouldn’t have smiled with such honest fondness, wouldn’t have even felt it much less allowed it to show, but he wasn’t that man anymore, not entirely. He had changed, would continue to change, to learn from his mistakes and hopefully not repeat them—

He was just leaning in to kiss that embarrassed look off Corvo’s face when the door opened again.

“And another thing,” Emily said, her gaze darting from Corvo to Daud, their intimate closeness and flushed faces. Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as they settled on Daud. “I have thoughts about your report from yesterday, Spymaster.”

Corvo coughed and stepped back, fiddling unnecessarily with the collar of his coat. Daud bit back a sigh, still too full of uncomplicated happiness for Emily’s continued interruptions to truly bother him, and turned his mind to the matter at hand.

* * *

(+1)

Corvo spent the majority of his time at or near Emily’s side, so it wasn’t too difficult to find a quiet moment with her. Working up the nerve to broach the subject, on the other hand, was more daunting. Finding a quiet moment was simple enough, but those didn’t tend to last long.

Emily watched him patiently, waiting for him to open the conversation. She reminded him of Jessamine more and more everyday, in her face if not quite so much in her actions, and it was the thought of Jessamine that finally spurred him on.

“Are you really all right with Daud and I—” Corvo floundered for several excruciating moments, as he tried to find the right way to put it, “—pursuing a relationship.”

“I said I was.” Emily frowned up at him, disappointed. “Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

“Well—” Again, Corvo found himself at a loss for words. Emily blinked up at him expectantly. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but you’ve interrupted us several times,” he said as gently as he could.

“Oh, I know.” Emily sounded entirely too smug.

“But you said—”

Emily’s smile then verged on a smirk, unnervingly sly, drawing Corvo up short. But it heartened him too: it seemed like the only smiles she gave these days were fake, born of politesse.

“I am fine with it, but that doesn’t mean I have to make it _easy_ for him.”

**Author's Note:**

> still taking prompts for short fics (like...definitely shorter than this. ideally less than 1k words but I have 0 self-control so who knows) on my tumblr, @crowbito. drop a pairing/character and a short prompt (even one word) in my askbox if you want or just come say hi :)


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